I thought once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young: And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,Those of my own life, who by turns had flung A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware, So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair; And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, "Guess now who holds thee!" "Death," I said, But, there, The silver answer rang, "Not Death, but Love."But only three in all God's universe Have heard this word thou hast said,Himself, beside Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied One of us . . . that was God, . . . and laid the curse So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce My sight from seeing thee, that if I had died,The death-weights, placed there, would have signifiedLess absolute exclusion.
